


5 Times Tasha Yar Almost Died

by AceofWands



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: 5 Times, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 06:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceofWands/pseuds/AceofWands
Summary: I went digging through my drafts folder and found this little gem, written in 2015 when I was re-watching early season Next Gen. I originally didn't post it because I didn't have the traditional +1 ending section, but I think it works fine without :)





	5 Times Tasha Yar Almost Died

**Author's Note:**

> I went digging through my drafts folder and found this little gem, written in 2015 when I was re-watching early season Next Gen. I originally didn't post it because I didn't have the traditional +1 ending section, but I think it works fine without :)

1.

“We’re not going without our shuttle crew!” Lieutenant Tasha Yar informed Armus, staring up at what appeared to be its face. Though whether it actually had a head, or was just mimicking their humanoid appearance, she wasn’t sure.

She stood on the desolate surface of Vagra Two, surrounded by endless hills of bare rock and dirt. The sky was a dull red, the air oppressively hot. There were no plants or animals or any sign of life—other than their downed shuttlecraft and the inky black pool that was stopping them from getting to it.

Data and Will stood beside her, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Beverly, medkit in hand, just as anxious to be past this being. Their shuttle’s crew needed their assistance, and they didn’t have time to negotiate with this … this, whatever it was.

“I warn you,” Armus said, its liquid voice gurgling unpleasantly.

Tasha curled her hands up into fists, her patience finally pushed to its limits.

“Enough! We have people who need attention. We won’t hurt you, but we must help them!”

She turned away from it and strode towards the shuttle, but she only walked a few paces when she was struck by an incredible wave of energy that sent her flying through the air.

The last thing Tasha was aware of was the dirt rising up to meet her face as she tumbled into it.

~

The next thing she was aware of was softness beneath her back, and cool air flowing over her face, and a dull ache that suffused her entire head.

“I think that’s done it,” someone was saying. Their voice was faint, but it was so familiar that Tasha pushed herself towards it. “Her synaptic network is weak. I wasn’t sure it would stay intact, but her brain activity is increasing. But this doesn’t mean … ”

Time seemed to have slowed down to quarter impulse for her. She knew people were moving about around her, knew they were speaking, but it was all distorted, stretched.

But slowly, eventually, Tasha realised she could feel the air flowing in and out of her lungs.

Then she noticed the layer of grit and stickiness—her blood?—on her face.

After that it wasn’t long before she realised her whole body was sore.

As each level of awareness returned to her, the pain in her head grew, until it was throbbing like a phaser set to overload. Everything felt hazy and sharp at the same time. But Tasha forced her eyes open, even though her vision was blurry, just a mess of colours and lights.

Slowly she saw the red and blue blobs in front of her coalesce into something resembling Beverly’s face. Her friend smiled down at her, the worry evident in the furrow of her brow warring with the relief shining through her eyes.

“Tasha, can you hear me?”

Tasha tried to open her mouth to respond, tried to remember how to form the syllables ‘ye’ and ‘es’, but couldn’t manage more than a strangled hum.

“Shhh, don’t try to talk,” Beverly said, pressing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked up, away from Tasha, and smiled, “She’s going to be okay.”

 

2.

Tasha aimed her phaser and fired at the Borg drone directly in front of her. The adaptive beam, modified by Geordi and Wesley, hit it straight in the armoured chest. It collapsed in a shower of sparks, its mechanical limbs spasming wildly even after it had hit the deck.

She moved on to her next target, ignoring the menacing approach of the other drones converging on her and Data. Her uniform shirt was sticking to her back, the humidity of the Borg ship oppressive and stifling; and her mind kept threatening to overwhelm her with thoughts of what could happen if they didn’t succeed—and all the things she should have done to prevent any of this from happening in the first place.

But she took those distractions and pushed them all aside, returning her mind to its razor sharp focus as she took out the last drone: leaving the way clear to their target.

Captain Picard was in sight.

Tasha ignored the lurch in her gut at his appearance. His face was completely drained of both its usual colour and warmth, his body covered in the same beetle black exoskeleton that all the Borg were fitted with. She could only hope that somewhere, deep inside his mind, her Captain and friend was still alive.

She and Data leapt over the fallen bodies of the drones and rushed to his side.

Data immediately latched onto his shoulders, using his android strength to keep him steady. Tasha slipped the hypospray out of her pocket and moved to press it to his neck. But just before she could squeeze the trigger, the Captain flung Data off, simultaneously knocking the hypospray out of her hand.

Tasha turned to see where it had landed, and that moment of distraction was all the Captain needed to grab her by the neck and lift her up into the air. His fingers dug into her throat, forcing her to gasp for air. She knew she didn’t have long—and a dozen martial arts moves were already running through her mind. Even struggling for oxygen she pulled off the most effective move perfectly, but it had no effect on his Borg enhanced strength.

Data appeared beside them and reached out to assist, but the Captain struck out with his other arm: the mechanical prosthesis at the end of it whirred, slicing through Data’s uniform.

Tasha tried to break free while he was distracted, using a neat mok’bara move Worf had shown her the other week, but his fingers only dug in deeper.

Her vision started to dim, her lungs burned, and Tasha’s only thought was that at least she could count on Data to try to save the Captain.

But just as Tasha felt everything fading to grey, she heard the distant sound of a hypospray.

A moment later the pressure on her throat finally eased and she collapsed onto the deck. She felt a firm hand yank her upright, and then a pressure against her upper arm—pressing against her emergency transporter armband.

Then the familiar tingle of a transporter beam swept over her. Her last thought, before she dematerialised, was that she should have known she could count on Data to save them all.

 

3.

“Beverly!” Tasha cried out, already rushing forward. She ignored the cloud of dirt and rock fragments that had risen up when the tunnel collapsed, focusing on getting Beverly out from under the rocks as quickly as possible.

It didn’t take long to shift the chunks of grey rock and uncover the Doctor.

“I’m okay,” Beverly said, coughing from the haze of dust particles that filled the air. She had a scrape along one of her prominent cheekbones, but she grasped Tasha’s proffered hand with a strong grip and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

“Are you alright to carry on Doctor?” Captain Picard asked, his brow furrowed.

“Yes, I’m fine, let’s move on,” Beverly insisted, dusting the pale dirt from her black special operations uniform.

Their team continued on, sneaking through the dark caves of Celtris Three, moving towards the source of the theta-band waves. Tasha ignored the churning of her gut, as she had done from the moment they had found out the specifics of their mission.

She had been excited about it, in a strange way, despite the intense training she and the Captain and Beverly had undergone. Although she loved her job aboard the Enterprise, there was something exhilarating about the idea of special ops missions—doing the tasks no one else could do. Being the best of the best. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she ought to request a transfer to Starfleet Intelligence—just to see if she liked it, or found it more fulfilling than the Enterprise.

But that was the problem of course, how could she leave the Enterprise behind? She was proud to serve on the finest ship in the fleet, and more importantly, the crew had become her family.

Besides, if this mission was anything to go on, maybe special ops wouldn’t suit her after all. She didn’t know whether it was just the fact that they were in Cardassian space, investigating a potentially lethal weapon, that was making her uneasy. Or maybe it was that travelling underground like this, her heart racing, adrenaline coursing through her, wondering with every step whether they were about to be discovered and killed, reminded her too much of Turkana Four.

It was almost a relief when they finally arrived at a maintenance hatch, even if Tasha’s heart started pounding even faster. She quickly set up sensor echoes to allow them to pass through the three proximity sensors and then set to work bypassing the magnetic seal holding the hatch shut.

The tasks distracted her from her uneasiness, but it returned with a vengeance when they stepped through the hatch to find a single device, emitting theta-band waves.

They had been led into a trap.

Within moments Cardassians were upon them, and Tasha didn’t have time to stop and think. She could only act. When the hatch began to creak shut, she leapt for it—firing her phaser at the Cardassians who tried to come after her.

“Captain! Doctor!” she called out, body straining against the weight of the door as the magnetic seal tried to force it closed.

Beverly executed a perfect mok’bara throw on the Cardassian attempting to grab onto her, then she raced back to Tasha, who provided cover fire with her phaser even as she pressed her entire body against the door in a futile attempt to slow it down.

Beverly squeezed through the doorway, past Tasha, then turned around to help the Captain—who was still grappling with a pair of Cardassians near the device.

Tasha tried to even the odds and fired at one of them. But all it took was that second of distraction for one of the Cardassians on the other side of the room to fire at her—the disruptor beam seared through her right shoulder, forcing her to drop her phaser as her arm spasmed in pain.

“Tasha!” Beverly exclaimed, as Tasha fell backwards through the hatch, landing on the cold dirt of the cave floor.

“The Captain!” Tasha cried out, ignoring the agony of her shoulder as she tried to force herself up, trying to reach him.

But it was already too late. Without her to hold the hatch open, it had closed those last inches too quickly for him to reach them.

“We’ve got to get back in there,” Tasha insisted, even as Beverly held her down with a firm hand, her medical tricorder already scanning her.

“It’s too late, we’ve got to get out of here before we’re caught. Here, this will help with the pain,” Beverly said, pressing the tip of a hypospray against Tasha’s neck and squeezing.

Tasha blinked back tears as the medicine began taking effect, dulling the pain to a mild ache. All she could think, over and over, was that she hadn’t done enough. It was her duty to protect the Captain, in these situations she was supposed to die before she let him be captured. Right now, with guilt and failure clawing up her throat, she almost wished she had.

Then Beverly squeezed her uninjured shoulder, “Come on Tasha, we need to go,” she reminded her. Tasha allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Then she followed Beverly back the way they’d come, the two of them moving as quickly as they dared through these godforsaken caves. Tasha’s body went through all the necessary motions, her injury barely stopped her at all. But her mind remained focused on that hatch, and the last glimpse she would ever have of her Captain and her friend.

 

4.

The thing Tasha hated most about EVA suits was the way her breathing echoed in the confined space. It made her skin feel too tight, made her dizzy and nauseous.

It wasn’t claustrophobia, at least, not exactly. And it had never bothered her until after Celtris Three.

Deanna had helped her understand, after a fortnight of sleepless nights, when she realised the crushing weight of her guilt hadn’t eased even after they’d recovered the Captain. Their counselling sessions had gone round and round in circles, Tasha growing more agitated each time she stepped through Deanna’s door. Until finally, accidentally, she made an offhand remark about how the caves and tunnels had reminded her of Turkana Four.

After that it all clicked into place.

“Tell me Tasha,” Deanna had said, her voice purposefully light, “Have you ever talked to anyone about how you felt, leaving your sister behind on Turkana Four?”

It was that conversation—and the subsequent ones, as Deanna helped her work through her feelings of guilt and anger and shame—that Tasha was thinking of now, as she stepped out onto the hull of the saucer section. Captain Picard and Worf were beside her, phaser rifles held aloft in preparation for what they’d find when they reached the deflector dish.

With each footstep and ragged inhalation Tasha remembered Deanna’s voice, coaching her through breathing exercises, until the rasp of her exhalation didn’t sound as loud as a phaser blast; until the chilled air circulating around her suit didn’t remind her of the freezing metal of the tunnel alcoves she and Ishara had curled up in, making themselves as small as possible, as they heard the screams echoing down the tunnels.

Until it was just her, as she was now, a Starfleet officer, stranded over three hundred years in the past, working with her crew to stop the Borg from altering the future: their present.

She’d been on space walks before of course, it was a required part of training at the Academy, but she’d forgotten how exhilarating it was. Living on a starship for over a decade, you almost forgot that you were in space. But out here, with nothing separating her from the vacuum of space other than a thin layer of synthetic fabric and transparent aluminium, here she was hyperaware of the fact.

The hull of the Enterprise E stretched out before them, the most alien landscape she’d ever walked on—stark metal plates fused together, against the blackness of space, with the Earth rotating slowly behind them.

After long, tense minutes of walking they finally crested the ‘hill’ and peered over the lip of the deflector dish.

As expected, Borg drones swarmed over the dish. They lacked any sort of EVA suit, their Borg enhancements apparently making them impervious to the vacuum of space. As the three of them watched, they worked together to fuse yet another piece of dull green metal into place over the emitter at the centre of the deflector.

“We should bring reinforcements,” Worf stated, clearly not liking their odds.

Tasha agreed, but knew that in the time it took for another team to join them, it may already be too late.

“There’s no time,” Captain Picard said, echoing her thoughts. “It looks as if they’re building the beacon right on top of the particle emitter. Once all the transponder rods are in place, the beacon will be activated.”

Tasha exhaled noisily, “Well we can’t fire our phasers at it—the dish is charged with anti-protons, if we accidentally hit it we’d destroy half the ship.”

“Right,” the Captain agreed, “We’ll have to find another way.”

Tasha took a moment to think, half a dozen possibilities running through her head. “What if we release the magnetic locks manually?” she suggested, “The dish will be separated from the ship without it sustaining any damage.”

“Good idea Commander,” the Captain said, already moving up and over the lip of the dish, “Mister Worf, you take the one on the right, Commander Yar-”

“The one on the left,” Tasha replied, keeping her phaser rifle trained in the direction of the Borg as she made her way around the rim.

Captain Picard was already busy at the panel of the central lock by the time she reached hers. She knew they didn’t have much time—once the Borg realised what they were doing, the drones would stop ignoring them.

Leaving her phaser rifle in easy reach beside her, Tasha quickly got to work resetting the console so it would accept manual input—all while keeping a close eye on the drones working in the centre of the dish.

As she was swapping the isolinear chips Tasha realised that one of the drones had broken off from the rest and was making its way towards her, the laser that replaced its left eye focused intently upon her. Her breathing grew louder in her ears as her pulse sped up, but Tasha just took a deep breath, and—without even stopping to put down the chip—reached over for her rifle with her left hand, aimed and squeeze the trigger.

The force of the blast in the zero gravity environment sent the drone flying out above the dish, tumbling into the endless vacuum of space.

Tasha tried to move even faster, pressing each command on the panel as quickly as she dared.

“Magnetic constrictors are disengaged,” Worf announced from the other side of the dish. Then Tasha heard the unmistakable sound of phaser fire, and looked up in time to see a green bubble of light flare around the drone he’d fired upon, as its shield activated.

“They have adapted,” Worf added, the barest hint of panic entering his voice. She saw him release his rifle and step back, preparing to fight the drone.

Another drone was making its way towards the Captain, who wasted no time in aiming his phaser rifle and firing—just below the drone, at the hull, so that a cloud of gases sent it flying away from him.

Tasha looked back down at her panel, which had finally enabled manual access. She grabbed onto the maglock servo control and pulled it out, then with a quick twist to set it into the unlock position, pushed it back in.

“Tasha!” Captain Picard’s voice rang out, startling her into looking up—and straight into the eyes of the Borg drone that was already on her.

Its hand reached out, grabbing for her upper arm, but her reflexes were faster. She tapped the release for her magnetic boots and kicked off, rising backwards, straight out of the drone’s grasp. She used her own momentum and, tucking as much as her suit would allow, backflipped until she was facing the drone again. It looked up at her with a blank expression, its mechanical arm raised, the blades of its cutting tool whirring noiselessly.

Tasha took a deep breath and then activated the suit’s thrusters full blast for a second. The sudden release of gas sent her shooting forwards, arcing over the drone’s head. It tried to reach for her, but Tasha had already sailed past it, aiming for Captain Picard.

She passed through the cloud of vapours he’d released earlier, which had obscured her vision, and crashed straight into one of the two drones that had come after the Captain.

Her momentum sent them both careening. She flailed in the zero gravity, unable to right herself—but the drone had surer footing. It grabbed onto her leg, and she had a moment of sheer panic when she was certain the next thing she was about to feel was her skin being punctured, then sharp metal coursing through her blood and the voice of the Collective in her mind, as she was assimilated.

Then suddenly, out of the haze, Worf appeared, Borg tubing tied around the leg of his suit, and mek’leth in hand. He sliced straight through the drone’s arm, and Tasha was struck by the absurd thought that they now had matching Borg accessories.

She took advantage of the drone’s confusion at its lost limb to kick out with her other leg, striking it in the face. Then Worf reached out for her arm, and with one solid twist had her feet back on the deck.

Tasha reactivated her magnetic boots, then she and Worf rushed over to help the Captain—who was grappling with a drone, the butt of his phaser rifle the only thing between him and assimilation.

“Help the Captain,” Tasha told Worf, already crouching down next to the last maglock and grabbing onto the servo control. The Captain had managed to pull it out before he must have been overwhelmed by the Borg. So it took only a second for her to twist it and push it back.

Then she stepped back as the clamps holding the dish onto the hull all unlocked, one after the other, the dish rising up without the magnetic locks holding it in place.

The Borg beacon entered the final sequence, lighting up as it prepared to activate.

Tasha turned back to the Captain and Worf in time to see the drone they’d been fighting tumble away, body severed in half. As soon as Captain Picard realised what was happening he lifted his phaser rifle and fired off a shot, severing the cable connecting the dish to the Enterprise.

Now all that was left was for them to retake the rest of the ship from the Borg. Oh, and ensure the Humans of this time made first contact with the Vulcans. Piece of cake.

 

5.

“We’ve got four Jem’Hadar ships on an intercept course!” Tasha announced, her voice as steady as she could make it.

“Red alert! All crew to battle stations,” Commander Riker announced over the comm, the red alert signal sounding for thirty seconds before it was silenced.

Captain Picard came rushing out of his ready room, tugging his uniform jacket down.

The little purple dots that represented the Dominion vessels on Tasha’s tactical display were rapidly converging on their position, and she was already calculating trajectories in her head and plotting out half a dozen strategies at the same time.

“Evasive manoeuvres Lieutenant Hawke,” Captain Picard commanded, lowering himself into the centre seat.

The deck of the Enterprise lurched to the right as their inertial dampers struggled to compensate for Hawke’s creative flying. Tasha maintained her footing, one hand holding onto the edge of her console, the other inputting commands in anticipation of the Captain’s next orders.

The Enterprise led the four ships on a chase that spanned half the sector before the Jem’Hadar finally got within weapon’s range.

“Fire at will Commander,” Picard ordered, gripping the arm rests of his chair.

“Aye sir,” Tasha replied, already tapping the panels to launch a volley of photon torpedoes in succession with a rapid sequence of phaser strikes at the approaching ships. The weapons streaked across the viewscreen, bright pulses of light that hurtled out to meet the insectoid purple ships that surrounded them. Most of them connected with their targets, the phaser beams weakening the shields in time for the torpedoes to strike.

Tasha prepared another sequence, already noting where the gaps and weak sections of the shields were. But before she could launch, all four of the enemy vessels flew past the Enterprise in a diamond formation, with one each on the port, starboard, dorsal and ventral sides of the ship, and fired at once—their disruptor beams and torpedoes co-ordinated to converge on the engineering section. Hawke tried to roll them out of the way, but it was too late, and the entire ship shuddered around them as their shields were battered and broken through, and a torpedo slipped inside the gap and exploded against the hull.

Tasha’s display of the ship’s schematics lit up bright red over the engineering section, but Data was already re-routing power to the shields there.

“Warning. Core breach imminent,” the Computer announced, a shrill alarm sounding.

Captain Picard practically stabbed the panel on his chair as he opened a channel to Engineering. “Commander La Forge! Status report!”

Tasha kept one ear to their conversation, but couldn’t pause in middle of the action to find out whether the ship was about to explode. She took a second to recalculate trajectories as Hawke spun the Enterprise on its axis to follow the Jem’Hadar, then launched another round of phaser strikes and torpedoes at their vessels before they had a chance to turn around and come in for another pass. She couldn’t resist a grim, triumphant smile as one of the torpedoes sailed through a gap in the shielding of the third vessel and hit a vulnerable power relay. The ship exploded instantly, damaging the second ship which had been closest to it.

“… Should be able to repair it,” Geordi was saying, “But another hit like that …”

“Understood Commander,” Captain Picard said, closing the channel and leaning forward in his chair. “Commander Yar, status of the Dominion vessels.”

Amid the chaos, the three remaining Jem’Hadar ships looped around to face the Enterprise again. Tasha was already readying the weapons for another strike, but knew that they were still heavily outnumbered and outgunned. But that had never stopped her before.

“We destroyed one sir, but the other three are coming in for another attack,” she replied. The Captain knew as well as she did that their odds were not looking good.

His jaw set in determination and he exchanged a grim look with Will. Both of them turned to face Tasha, who looked up from her console long enough to return their serious expressions.

“Carry on firing at your discretion Commander,” Picard ordered, and Tasha would feel touched at his confidence in her if her heart wasn’t starting to thump even more wildly with the fear that her best efforts to defend her ship—and by extension, the Federation—from destruction might not be good enough.

“Aye sir,” she responded, returning her attention to her console and targeting the Dominion vessels as they entered firing range.

Another burst of torpedoes and phaser beams destroyed the ship that was already weakened, but the other two were still intact as they flew past the Enterprise, one to port and the other to starboard. Their disruptor beams were concentrated on the same section of the engineering hull, which had its shields increased, but was still vulnerable from the previous strike.

Consoles overloaded around them and showered them in sparks as the EPS system blew out, the noise and smoke almost drowning out the voice of the Computer as it warned them that another core breach was imminent.

The display of Tasha’s console flashed ominously at her, informing her that: “Phasers are down Captain!”

A pit of dread had opened up in her stomach, but she pushed it to one side and locked torpedoes, which were still operational for the moment, on the Jem’Hadar vessels before they’d had a chance to turn around. The Enterprise pivoted around to face them again, but the helm was sluggish and the already taxed inertial dampers did little to stop the lurch in Tasha’s belly as the deck rolled under their feet.

A tap at her console and the torpedoes launched, some of them striking against the weakened shields—but neither of the Jem’Hadar ships was destroyed. They moved out of torpedo range while they turned around to come after them a third—and possibly final time.

“-don’t think I can contain it,” La Forge was saying to the Captain over the comm.

Picard and Riker exchanged another glance, then the Captain nodded and activated the ship-wide comm.

“All hands, this is the Captain. Abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship.”

Tasha swallowed past the lump in her throat, refocusing on her console to prepare another volley of torpedoes.

Commander Riker staggered past her console as he moved to oversee the evacuation procedures, and she reached out a hand to get his attention.

“Will, I’m staying aboard. Someone needs to stop the Jem’Hadar from destroying the escape pods,” she announced, her voice completely steady.

His eyes met hers for a second, and Tasha thought he was going to object, but then he nodded solemnly, face set. “As long as you’re sure Tasha.”

Tasha thought that would be the end of it, but he reached out his hand and gripped hers, giving her fingers a quick squeeze before he moved on.

She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the chaos of the bridge around her, the air filled with a haze of smoke that stung her nose and eyes. She rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, almost surprised to find it drenched with sweat, then turned her attention back to the incoming Jem’Hadar ships. Her tactical display lit up as dozens of escape pods prepared to launch, and she watched the purple dots coming closer for ten seconds before she realised that there were three green dots rapidly approaching from the edge of the sector.

“We’ve got incoming!” she announced, looking over to meet Captain Picard’s startled gaze. “Three Klingon vessels on an intercept course.”

The Captain’s gaze turned even more steely, “Well then Tasha, let’s try to keep the Enterprise in one piece until they get here.”

“Yes sir!” Tasha agreed, a determined, if grim smile on her face. Even if they couldn’t, at least she knew the Klingons would save the rest of the crew. The odds had swung back in their favour. She guessed it was true, what Will told her all these years, about fate protecting fools and ships named Enterprise.

And, as if confirming her point, her console chose that moment to light up as the phasers came back online.

Tasha locked their weapons onto the last two Jem’Hadar ships and opened fire.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't obvious, the 5 times correspond to: 1. 'Skin of Evil', with some dialogue borrowed directly from the episode 2. 'Best of Both Worlds' 3. 'Chain of Command' 4. 'First Contact', with some dialogue borrowed from the movie, and 5. during the Dominion War.


End file.
